A NEW ITERATIVE TRICLASS THRESHOLDING

TECHNIQUE IN IMAGE SEGMENTATION

ABSTRACT
Image processing, segmentation is often the first step to pre-process images to extract
objects of interest for further analysis. Segmentation techniques can be generally categorized into
two frameworks, edge-based and region-based approaches. s a segmentation technique, !tsu"s
method is widely used in pattern recognition, document binarization, and computer #ision.
!tsu"s method is used as a pre-processing technique to segment an image for further processing
such as feature analysis and quantification. !tsu"s method searches for a threshold that
minimizes the intra-class #ariances of the segmented image and can achie#e good results when
the histogram of the original image has two distinct peaks, one belongs to the background, and
the other belongs to the foreground or the signal. $he !tsu"s threshold is found by searching
across the whole range of the pixel #alues of the image until the intra-class #ariances reach their
minimum. In this paper, we present a new iterati#e method that is based on !tsu"s method but
differs from the standard application of the method in an important way. t the first iteration, we
apply !tsu"s method on an image to obtain the !tsu"s threshold and the means of two classes
separated by the threshold as the standard application does.
EXISTING SYSTEM:
!tsu"s method, the new method starts to create better results as we can compare. nd at
the final iteration, the new method creates much better results as shown., indicating that in the
process of searching for optimal $%& regions for segmentation, the new method is not ad#ersely
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affected by some low distance ratios at initial iterations. 'e showed the histogram of the original
and the changes of the thresholds. $he thresholds monotonically decrease from a large #alue of
()(.* on iteration one, which is also the !tsu"s threshold, to a small #alue of +)., on iteration
se#en, indicating that the iterati#e method progressi#ely searches for weak objects to segment.
PROPOSED SYSTEM:
$he original image and its !tsu"s result are shown respecti#ely. 'e obser#e that the
standard !tsu"s method misses the weak nucleus at the bottom of the image. 'e then applied the
iterati#e method and show the result of the first and fourth iterations, which is the last iteration.
-xperiments on another microscopic image with multiple nuclei. .a/ zoomed-in portion of
muscular nuclei acquired by fluorescence microscopy, the weak nuclei are marked by red arrow.
.b/ $he result of !tsu"s method. 0ote it missed the weak nuclied pointed by the arrows in .a/..c/
1esults after the first iteration of the new method. .d/ 1esults after the fourth iteration of the new
method. $he nuclei missed by the standard !tsu"s method are now detected by the proposed
method. 'e note that although the final result does not fully segment the whole areas of the weak
nuclei, starting with the result we can reco#er the nuclei by using techniques such as region-
regrowing in post-processing. respecti#ely. 'hile the first iteration also misses the weak nucleus,
the algorithm detects the nucleus at the final iteration. s the last example, another microscopic
image consisting of many nuclei with #arious gray intensities was tested. $he original image
contains some weakly stained nuclei, as pointed by the arrows. 1esult gi#en by !tsu"s method
shows that the method misses weak nuclei. %y applying the proposed method on the same image,
we found that the weak nuclei are gradually detected by the iterati#e process. t the final result,
all three weak nuclei are marked correctly. 2ere we note that though the final segmentation result
gi#en by the new method do not re#eal the full sizes of the three weak nuclei, they can be readily
reco#ered in post processing by techniques like region growing. In both examples, the iteration
stops when the change in threshold T 3i4 is less than two. 'e also computed the distance ratios
and show the plots respecti#ely. 5rom the figure we obser#e that despite #ery low distance ratios
at the first iterations for both figures, the ratios quickly increase from iteration two, suggesting
that the $%& regions at each iteration pro#ide fa#orable inputs for !tsu"s method to process. $he
abo#e examples on both synthetic and real images demonstrate that the new method achie#es
superior performance in segmenting single or multiple objects, e#en in #ery challenging cases.
IMPLEMENTATION
Implementation is the stage of the project when the theoretical design is turned out into a
working system. $hus it can be considered to be the most critical stage in achie#ing a successful
new system and in gi#ing the user, confidence that the new system will work and be effecti#e.
$he implementation stage in#ol#es careful planning, in#estigation of the existing system
and it"s constraints on implementation, designing of methods to achie#e changeo#er and
e#aluation of changeo#er methods.
MODULES
A. Otsus threshold Method
B. Iterative Method
MODULES DESCRIPTION :
A. Otsus threshold Method
!tsu"s method searches the histogram of an image to find a threshold that binarizes the
image into two classes, the background with a mean of * and the foreground with a mean of (,
as shown in the top .'ithout loss of generality, here we assume that the foreground is brighter
than the background. $he calculation of threshold T is as follows. we can see that T is function of
the pixel #alues of both the foreground and the background. If the signal intensity changes, it
may affect T in such a way that the segmentation result may become less optimal. 0ext we use
an example to illustrate the effect of signal intensity on the calculation of T. 5ig. ).a/ shows an
original image consisting of multiple objects in gray scale. $he segmentation result of the
standard !tsu"s method is shown in 5ig. ).b/, from which we can obser#e that most objects are
correctly segmented or marked. $hen we purposely added a strong object to the original image to
increase the o#erall signal intensity in the foreground and tested how !tsu"s method performs in
this case. $he new test image is shown in 5ig. ).c/ and the corresponding !tsu"s result is shown
in 5ig. ).d/. $hough one would expect that with added signal intensity the segmentation result
should be equally good or better, the result of 5ig. ).d/ shows that some weak objects are
actually missed now by !tsu"s method. s shown abo#e, there are cases that !tsu"s method does
not produce satisfactory results e#en when the foreground has a high signal intensity, i.e., a
higher signal-to-background ratio .S%1/. In other words, the performance of !tsu"s method is
not a function of S%1 only.
B. Iterative Method
$he idea of di#iding an image"s histogram iterati#ely into three classes is illustrated at the
bottom of 5ig. (. 5or an image u, at the first iteration, !tsu"s method is applied to find a
threshold T 3(4 where the superscript denotes the number of iteration. 'e then find and denote
the means of the two classes separated by T 3(4 as 3(4 * and 3(4 ( for the background and
foreground, respecti#ely. $hen we classify regions whose pixel #alues are greater than 3(4 ( as
foreground F3(4 and regions whose pixel #alues are less than 3(4* as background B3(4. 5or the
remaining pixels u(x, y) such that 3(4*6 u(x, y) 6 3(4( we denote them as the $%& class _3(4.
So our iterati#e process assumes that the pixels that are greater than the mean of the 7tentati#ely8
determined foreground are the true foreground. Similarly, pixels with #alues less than * are for
certain the background. %ut the pixels in the $%& class, which are the ones that typically cause
misclassifications in the standard !tsu"s method, are not decided at once and will be further
processed.
CONSLUSION
s !tsu"s method is widely used as a pre-processing step to segment images for further
processing, it is important to achie#e a high accuracy. 2owe#er, since !tsu"s threshold is biased
towards the class with a large #ariance, it tends to miss weak objects or fine details in images.
5or example in biomedical images, nuclei and axons may be imaged with #ery different
intensities due to une#en staining or imperfect lightening conditions, raising difficulty for
algorithms like !tsu"s method to successfully segment them. 'ithout a robust segmentation
results, more sophisticated processing such as tracking and feature analysis become highly
challenging. In this paper, we proposed to take ad#antage of !tsu"s threshold by classifying
images into three tentati#e classes instead of two permanent classes in an iterati#e manner. $he
three classes are designated as the true foreground and background, and a third $%& region that
is to be further processed at the next iteration. t each iteration, the tri-class approach keeps
regions that are determined to be foreground and background unchanged and focuses on the third
$%& region. t each succeeding iteration, the area of the $%& region decreases and more pixels
are assigned to the foreground and background classes. $he iteration stops until the change in
thresholds of two consecuti#e iterations is less than a threshold. $o assist on e#aluating the
performance of the new algorithm we introduced the notion of distance ratio which measures a
posteriori how fa#orable an image or region is for !tsu"s method to segment. $he performance
of the new algorithm is e#aluated on both synthetic and real microscopic images. %y assigning
#ery strong and #ery weak pixels to the tentati#e foreground and background classes, the new
method is less biased toward the class with a large #ariance than !tsu"s method does.
-xperimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can achie#e superior performance
in segmenting weak objects and fine details. $he new method is also almost parameter-free
except for the preset threshold to terminate the iterati#e process. $he added computational cost is
minimal as the process usually stops in a few iterations and each iteration only processes a
monotonically shrinking $%& region. 5rom a statistical analysis perspecti#e, !tsu"s method is
optimal to separate a bi-modal histogram into two classes where the probability distribution
functions .9&5s/ of the two classes ha#e an approximately 7tall and thin8 shape. 2owe#er, when
one or both 9&5s ha#e a 7wide and flat8 shape a single threshold determined by !tsu"s or other
method may not be sufficient to correctly separate the two classes as some pixels in the signal
class may appear closer to the noise class on the histogram and become difficult to segment.
Indeed, in !tsu"s method, as well as in many segmentation methods, a common challenge is to
decide which pixels should or should not be binarized by a common threshold. If we ha#e this
information, then we can design perfect segmentation algorithm for #irtually no errors. $esting
results show that the new method can achie#e better performance in challenging cases. 'e note
that there are many segmentation methods, but many of them require careful selection of
parameters to achie#e satisfactory performance. 5rom this perspecti#e, a parameter-free method
may be well suited in many applications.
SYSTEM SPECIFICATION
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